Talking to the landlord of our local, who’s calling it a day, the other night. The pub business is absolutely on its knees. As a landlord you get ****ed over by the breweries at every turn. They’ve absolutely got you by the short and curlies.

I’ll be amazed if there are any local boozer type pubs left in 5 years. It’ll just be chains and gastropubs. If you’re not doing loads of food etc, and your just punting pints, its virtually impossible to make a profit

Grum – Its not just the supermarkets. He was saying he walks into places like weatherspoons, looks at the prices they’re selling for, and he can’t buy his beer for that, direct from the brewery. How the hell are they supposed to compete? Hence the pubs that do remain will be the big souless chains

Other than the likes of Wetherspoons the only pubs that seem to do well/still be trading are Freehouses.

As your not tied to a brewery you can buy from who you want and reap more of the proceeds.

You still need to be offering something the buying public want though whether it be the atmosphere or ambience,real ales ,food etc actually most of the pubs round our way that seem to do well are the ones that do decent food to.

I’m quite tempted to do this – anyone else fancy owning a small share in a probably not very profitable pub in Hebden? Seems like the kind of pub you don’t really get any more – very old fashioned but full of character. Would be a shame to see it go.

Urban myth-I promise you they dont. Near on 1000 pubs with a colossal turnover in beer sales; it’s not possible for either the major brewers to over brew that much beer or for Wetherspoons to base their low prices on the chance of buying their beer at a discount.

They simply have such a huge turnover that they can practise the perfect example of ‘stack it high, sell it cheap’…

The Fox&Goose? Yes, no need to deal with anyone large if it’s freehold they’re proposing to buy, and if they are buying it outright (??) then with no rent/mortgage they should be able to sell local niche products/ales at very reasonable prices.

I’ll be amazed if there are any local boozer type pubs left in 5 years. It’ll just be chains and gastropubs. If you’re not doing loads of food etc, and your just punting pints, its virtually impossible to make a profit

not true IMO. A pub is a business like any other, the landlords with a head for business will be doing ok. You just can’t expect people to sit all day in a boozer any more so you have to change with the times.

There are a few micro pubs locally doing well, 10 people and they are packed in like sardines, but they only serve proper ale and have a steady stream of punters popping in for a pint or two all day. Overheads are low because the premises are tiny, plus they have no kitchen/sky tv/brewery to worry about. Another larger place is doing extremely well, they brew their own beer and are v popular with CAMRA types, yet fri/sat evening the lasers and disco ball comes out and they attract a much younger crowd.

Agree that the “local boozer” type place is dying out, not such a bad thing though, they’re normally pretty depressing places.

Talking to the landlord of our local, who’s calling it a day, the other night. The pub business is absolutely on its knees. As a landlord you get ****ed over by the breweries at every turn. They’ve absolutely got you by the short and curlies.

I’ll be amazed if there are any local boozer type pubs left in 5 years. It’ll just be chains and gastropubs. If you’re not doing loads of food etc, and your just punting pints, its virtually impossible to make a profit

Hmm so are the breweries not interested in the survival of these traditional pubs then? No point killing off your customers but do they think that chains and gastropubs are the sort of customers they prefer and they would like more rather than traditional ones?

My local is a proper old geezers’ pub. Beautiful, converted stable block. No signage of any kind and it’d be very easy to walk past the entrance (through a fantastic sheltered garden) without knowing it was a pub. They started doing food about five years ago and have gone from strength to strength.

It’s like eating at Crow Crag (Withnail and I). All open fires, port, candles, crisp linen and mis-matched vintage cutlery. And the food is simple but excellent.

Mudshark – The breweries own the pubs/land. They’ll milk their tenants for as long as possible, before they flog it to turn into flats. They can’t lose. They win either way. If someone who’s sunk their life savings/retirement into the place loses their livelihood/savings ? Well…. Who cares?

You need loud music, some strippers, karaoke, quizzes and some extremely expensive lager, you’ll be driving that Porsche before you can say “bouncer”.

Seriously though, one thing I have learned in thirty years of drinking in pubs is that the landlord maketh the pub and is responsible for its success or failure in the kind of clientele he encourages and discourages and the tone he sets to his welcome.

The breweries own the pubs/land. They’ll milk their tenants for as long as possible, before they flog it to turn into flats. They can’t lose.

I think you are talking about big, traditional breweries (who make crap beer) and the pubs they own. Couldn’t care less about those personally, I don’t buy their beer or drink in their pubs. There are a huge number of small brewing operations springing up now and the mega-brewers are getting scared as they are seeing their market share eroded (I have heard this first hand from people who work for the local one). Good, as far as I’m concerned. The little brewers don’t sell their beer in supermarkets and depend on the local free pubs to survive so are behind them 100% which is as it should be. The pub/ale industry locally as booming, it’s a great time to drink beer!

years before the real ale revolution the fox and goose was the only place to get a decent pint in hebden, then, up until recently, it was the best pub in town, a town which is awash with great beer. the trouble is, i can’t see the locals using their spare cash to invest in property, they are beer drinkers after all… good luck to them, its still a great pub.

sod all parking

the locals park further up the hill, what kind of seasoned drink driver parks outside the pub anyway 😉

Big breweries holding publicans to ransom mostly ended in the late 80s/early 90s when the monopolies and mergers decided to limit the number of pubs brewers could own.

Some would say that the culprits these days are the big tenanted pub companies with 1000s of pubs each: punch, enterprise, etc. The counter argument is that if they charged less for the beer they’d charge more rent to maintain margins (and stay in business. which is touch and go at times in the current climate) so they would argue that they’re sharing the risk with the tenant.

There are still the old family/regional brewers who both brew and have a few hundred pubs (Fullers, Robinsons, Brains, St Austell, etc) but they are tiny compared to the big pub companies and are relatively fair to their tenants in my opinion, although the ones whose businesses fail probably disagree!

Of course, they are all utterly dwarfed by the big brewers, of which there are probably about 6 globally, but they don’t own pubs. Heineken are probably the biggest in the UK since they bought Scottish and Newcastle a few years ago. When you start to read up on who owns which brands it’s incredible how many well known ones (especially lagers but also the likes of doombar) are owned by so few companies.

The opposite end if the scale is the microbrewers, who thanks to a significant tax break can undercut all the others so can compete with the big brands to some extent without having to spend on marketing, as long as they don’t get too big. This is a really good thing in my opinion and some of them do make some really nice beer 🙂

Oh and yes, wetherspoons are the crc/tesco of the pub world. Massive buying power, drive down prices, more people buy from them so their buying power increases.Vicious circle.

Fundamentally though the problem for pubs is that I and so many like me are sitting at home watching tv/on the Internet with a supermarket bottle of wine whereas in the 80s i’d probably have been stopping at the pub for early doors each night. I love a good evening in a nice real ale pub but tbh I don’t do it often. That said, the pubs that struggle most are the carling/fosters type drinking pubs. A well-run ale house or quality food-led pub can do extremely well at the moment, subject to location.

Hmm, long post. TL;DR: it’s complicated and always changing, but there’s still room for good pubs and good beer. Oh. And I probably won’t invest in that pub, personally, but good luck to anyone that does. 🙂

There is no way I know on a Monday JDW are going to order 1 or 100 casks of beer . All beer that goes into a JDW has to have a 1 month shelf life remaining. This doesnt sound a long time , and it isnt compared to baked beans or frozn peas. This is however 50% of its available shelf life .

JDW do have a centralised buying and pricing structure which ensures huge volume and a significant discount that goes with it .

All JDW pubs have very clean cellars and the beers are generally well kept , compared to some pub cellars that are so horrible they smell like a tramp has been sick in them . That air is sucked into the cask when its served , so goes off quickly because fat , lazy landlords wont spend 30 mins washing down the cellar.

Its an unfortunate YY to pubcos squeezing the supplier and the LL to make millions. No need to sell beer for £3 – £4 a pint . It costs 40p – 60p a pint to make depending on strength and size of brewery. A freehouse can still buy in real ale for around 90p a pint , around £1.10 for lager . So the margins are there , its the Pubcos charging the LL £1.50 a pint that has the prices to shoot up

We nipped down to our local last night after dropping the little lady off at prom. We had 3 drinks each couple of bags of crisps and laddo had two cokes. I was nearly 30 quid lighter on the way home. That and that only is the reason it’s only the second time we’ve been this year for a quick drink…